Iraq Veterans Against the War #NoDAPL Statement of Solidarity

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) comes together in solidarity and resistance with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation), and the thousands of water warriors defending their land and livelihood from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). If construction is completed, the DAPL will transport 450,000 barrels of fracked and highly volatile crude oil per day from the Bakken fields of North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. As US Military Veterans and Service members, many of whom have witnessed first hand the degradation and pollution caused by war, we denounce this corporate environmental catastrophe in the making.

The proposed 1,172-mile pipeline threatens the health of 17 million people who rely upon the Missouri River for water. IVAW supports The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oceti Sakowin in their opposition to the pipeline, which trespasses their territory as defined by the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties, and their demand that these treaties be obeyed as law. The Army Corps Of Engineers are violating the rights secured to all human beings by the Charter of the United Nations and specifically to Indigenous peoples under the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. By Art. VI, Clause 2, of the United States Constitution, that we as veterans swore to uphold, these have become part of the Supreme Law of the United States of America. The violation of the Fort Laramie treaties is an affront to Native sovereignty, and we recognize that upholding Native treaties is essential to the fight against climate change. We decry the violence being used against innocent and unarmed protectors and believe it to be a heinous act being committed by our government.

We recognize the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Indigenous peoples from all over the world who are gathering, fighting, and protecting their land and resources against all threats, foreign and domestic. The DAPL threatens the health, welfare, and dignity of sovereign Indigenous nations and autonomous Indigenous communities here and abroad.

As veterans against illegal occupations by the U.S. military, we know the Army Corp of Engineers is part of an apparatus of imperial violence that displaces Indigenous people across the world in order to appropriate natural resources. The US Military is implicated in the global pollution and privatization of land, water, and air for profit. We will not stand aside and allow corporate greed to continue to exploit Indigenous territory for dangerous resource extraction plans that jeopardizes the health of all people and the planet.

IVAW joins the call for the Army Corps of Engineers to reject the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to drill under Lake Oahe. IVAW stands in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oceti Sakowin to protect the water and future of generations to come. #NoDAPL #RezpectOurWater #WaterIsLife